Warm hoodies on cold nights (and all the stars in your eyes)

Chapter One - For Memories

"It'll be fun," Schlatt urges, his face so close to Wilbur's, and Wilbur feels warm breath coast over his skin before he laughs uncomfortably and draws away.

"I don't know, Schlatt," he says with a small smile, his hand ghosting over his wrist, fingering the small bandaid, smooth under his fingertips. "Small little rental worlds have never been my kinda thing, and Phil hates those little respawn servers."

"Why, cause he's so busy building a fucking sea monument?"

"Probably," Wilbur giggles. "But he's so proud of it."

"Fucking stupid," Schlatt grins, sharp and amused. Wilbur stares into his honey eyes, and snorts.
"Hey. Insult your own dad."

"Maybe I will if you come with me," Schlatt suggests, and it's not smooth at all, or a good offer, but Wilbur sighs. It's Schlatt's birthday soon, anyway, and he reckons he'd rather fuck himself over in a virtual world.

"Fine," he sighs eventually, and Schlatt smiles brightly, bright enough that Wilbur almost freezes in his tracks as they pull away from leaning over cold metal railings, water gushing dark and soft beneath them. "When?" he asks as they walk, looking up at the light sprinkling of stars half-obscured by clouds.

"Whenever?" Schlatt suggests.

"Tomorrow, then," Wilbur says, feeling a reckless smile lift the corner of his mouth. Schlatt echoes the smile, and then raises a hand in a small goodbye, though he briefly sways towards Wilbur, as if about to hug him goodbye, the way he only really does when he's drunk. Wilbur wonders if he's had a drink of something beforehand, and decides it isn't too unlikely. "Bye, Schlatt," he grins. "Love you," he adds with a smirk, and blows him a kiss before giggling and running away as Schlatt yells something at him.

He walks the rest of the way home alone. It's not long, just a couple of minutes before he reaches a familiar looking old house with a small red car parked at the front.
"Hey dad, I'm home," he calls. "Can I go out with Schlatt tomorrow?"

"Again?" Phil calls back, sounding amused.

"Yeah," Wilbur shrugs. "He's invited me to come to one of his servers and poke around."

"Yeah?" Phil asks, and Wilbur can tell he wants to know more, but he just sticks his head into the room where Phil's watching TV and nods.
"Can I go?" he asks.

"Well... As long as you don't get up to anything," Phil says after a while. "Will you be staying over there?"

Wilbur considers. It's one of Schlatt's insane servers, probably, which means he'll be dragged into some elaborate scheme... "Yeah," he nods. "Maybe a couple days. We'll be fine."

"Well, alright," Phil says dubiously, and Wilbur knows he doesn't like Schlatt very much, but he can't bring himself to care.

He goes up to his room. Tommy's shouting something, probably playing with his friends, and Techno's probably asleep, or reading again. Wilbur hasn't switched the light on in his room for ages – he's mostly hanging out with Schlatt these days, or sitting in the darkness with the curtains drawn, just scrolling through his phone. He sits behind his desk, half-heartedly picking a few clothes from the floor and dropping them in a neater pile. He'll take care of it later. He's been telling himself that for a while.

He tried to write songs, has tried for weeks now, but he feels blank. A few months ago, he'd drawn a knife over his own skin, wondering if he'd feel it properly, wondering if it would mean there was anything wrong with him. Maybe he'd feel like the was fucking worth something if he had the scars to prove it.
He'd only really wanted to do it once, but the bandaid on his wrist was from yesterday, hiding several smaller, deeper cuts across the bone of his wrist, and he doesn't know how he'd explain the scars. Scared a cat outside, or paper cuts, or something.